


Unsaid

by Ladywolfsbane



Category: Hannibal Lecter (Hopkins Movies), Hannibal Lecter Tetralogy - Thomas Harris
Genre: Epistolary, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-20
Updated: 2020-07-20
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:42:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25391803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ladywolfsbane/pseuds/Ladywolfsbane
Summary: In which Clarice and Hannibal write each other unsent letters on the one year anniversary of her FBI graduation.
Relationships: Hannibal Lecter/Clarice Starling
Comments: 1
Kudos: 31





	Unsaid

Dear Doctor,

Given your psychiatric background, I’m sure you’ve heard about the supposedly cathartic exercise of writing a letter you’ll never send.

The FBI psychiatrist I was sent to suggested this to me sometime after I was sent to him for evaluation after killing Buffalo Bill. Never thought about doing it until now. I’m sure you know what date (or dates) are approaching. Your escape. Catherine’s rescue. My graduation.

There were more things I wished I could have asked you, you know. But then, well … you did what you did. I wonder where you are now. Europe, maybe? You seemed to have a love for that part of the world.

Anyway. Almost a year. I haven’t made a lot of advancement, but that’s to be expected. Writing transcripts of wiretaps, raids. Not glamorous, but you have to put the work in to get where you want to be.

Only …

I feel wrong even writing this, even though I know you’ll never read this. But I still sometimes feel like a square peg trying to jam myself into a round hole. When I do a good job, it often seems that the people around me praise me in a way like you would a little dog that does a clever trick. Fond and condescending.

Sometimes my insights are brushed over despite their merits. I know I’m still green, but catching a fucking serial killer should count for something. God. I can’t stand their attitudes sometimes. I know there were times you mocked, but it didn’t feel the same. It was a challenge. You’ve viewed me as an equal, almost.

The bar is damn low when a cannibal treats you with more respect than some of your colleagues.

Well, I’m not sure what more to write.

But thank you for your lessons, Doctor. And thank you for your courtesy.

P.S. I wonder if you still consider me sometimes? No. I shouldn’t have even written that.

—

Dear Clarice,

Ah, what a momentous date has just passed. I happened to glimpse your visage in one of the tabloid rags. The headline seemed to promise that the article beneath it would regale the reader with a recollection of your first kill and the saving of Catherine Martin. And my own escape, of course.

While I only saw but a glimpse of your face in black and white, you remained beautiful. But changed since I saw you. I must presume it was a recent photo, then.

Your face reminded me of a the subject of a Pre-Raphaelite painting: wild, untouchable with a fierceness about your mien, but a strange sadness in your eyes.

What is the source of that, do you think? Are you even aware of that look in your gaze?

Sometimes I think back on the last moment I saw you. That same wildness in your eyes, determination to get what you wanted. But the beginnings of that sorrow had not taken root. We touched, do you remember? There was a … spark, one might say, if one were feeling cliche.

But it does make me consider and ponder what that spark could become should we cross paths again, and should that spark be tended to and allowed to grow into a flame.

Happy belated anniversary, my dear.


End file.
